Flipping Haunted Houses For Fun And Profit! 1.18 - Adoption Day (Patreon)

In the days leading up to ‘adoption day’, a surprising number of people called Danny and expressed an interest in adopting parts of his late father’s collection. As expected, many of them were collectors that Mr. Halili previously knew, although there were a few curious people that had probably found out from the fliers he’d put up in the shrine and temple.

Of course, not all of his days was spent on legwork. After two days of making calls and contacting people on the list Danny had given him, there was nothing else he could reasonably do and went back to the work to help there, just in time to help lay new tiles on the floors and retile the bathroom… which unfortunately required them to move the toilet. Whatever violent exorcism had occurred had managed to break the sink and a lot of the tiles on the walls, but not that. Go figure.

Fortunately the toilet was dry, so there was nothing too spill out after Malory used a black veneblade to cut through the mortar securing the toilet in place after they pulled off the watercloset. The two of them had wrestled the pieces out of the bathroom under the direction of Mark, who did the bathroom and plumbing stuff. Well, the bathroom stuff that wasn’t laying tile.

Tiling the floors was actually the most frustrating of the work he’d had to do so far. He didn’t know what the tile logic placement was, but NONE of the tiles were flush against the walls, even though the wall was straight enough for it! Why?-! It would save so much work in cutting the tiles to fit! Not that he cared about needing to cut the tiles—Harmony and Malory took care of that using an angle grinder with a cutting disc and very thin veneblades, respectively—but why weren’t they flush against the wall?-!

From the amused look on Harmony’s face, she could tell why he was glaring at the tiles while they worked.

Taking the tiles off the walls also allowed them to change the shower knob, which had rusted and lost its threads at some point and needed to be completely replaced. That part Loren had been able to do himself, using Change to loosen the threading so that they could unscrew the shower’s valve. After the new valve and piping for the shower had been laid in, Loren covered the pipe with cement. He’d managed to refine the alchemical cement a little bit, so the patch had cured about three hours later, letting them start putting in the new bathroom tiles.

The house was actually coming together pretty well. Its walls were still covered in old paint, soot, and what Loren recognized as spray from something melting and splattering against the walls—which they’d still have to scrape or at worse chisel off—but after the tiles they were set to clean the walls so that new paint would stick properly.

Outside, the grounds were less of a mess as well. The wooden debris had slowly been consumed to act to imbue the veneplate shell that protected their equipment shed, while roofing sheets had been used to… well, make something to burn the wood in so it was easier to get rid of the ashes the next day. Though they did have a pile of ashes now…

In the middle of the week, Norm had come buy once or twice with prospective buyers. Renting a house like this was unlikely. It was too nice for that. Rented properties were usually three or four townhouses crammed into a property this size. Well, five or six for someplace this big.

“Yeah, Steve’s selling it,” Harmony explained one day while the two of them were having lunch. Despite her annoyed look, he was having cup noodles, because he wanted to and he deserved it! “Because we got it cheaper as stigmatized property, we can afford to sell it under the going rate and still make a tidy profit even after expenses.” She suddenly snorted. “And at least we exorcise the place. About the time I was hired, there was this other outfit—I forget the name—that was doing the same. Bought stigmatized properties, flipped them, and sold them at a mark-up that was still lower than market value.”

“I assume from the context that something happened to them,” Loren said dryly.

“They skipped the exorcising part,” Harmony said. “Bastards.”

“Ah. And since it’s not legally required that they disclose that the property is stigmatized…”

“Yup,” Harmony said, smacking her lips to pop the last letter. “Not all ghosts are as nice and reasonable as Sara. Some are just assholes, or were left behind by their family during the move because they weren’t the best people. Last I heard, all the construction workers injured during refurbishing and the families the haunted houses were sold to are suing them into the ground for damages.”

A bittersweet smile came over her face. “It hurt us for a bit, since prospective buyers heard of the cases and thought we might pull the same, but we’ve built up a good reputation since then. Others have been trying to do the same, but it’s mostly been smaller operations established by former vigilants who… well, they’re better at the exorcising part than the house flipping, but they manage by doing the work themselves. It’s more of a retirement gig for some of them, so taking more time to get a house ready isn’t really a problem for them. A few have switched to just focusing on the exorcising thing. We hire them for violent exorcisms from time to time.”

“Uh… did they…” he gestured towards the house.

“No, that was a hire from the vigilant chapter house. Steve was pissed at the collateral damage. Good thing the vigilant office agreed they caused an unseemly amount of damage and cut the price accordingly.”

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When ‘adoption day’ arrived, he attended to help Danny bring the figures out of the house, and because he’d gone home anyway so he could do his laundry. Steve hadn’t said anything, but as the guy assigned to ‘dealing with’ the haunting of the Halili house—Mrs. Halili and Steve had already come to an agreement, things had been signed, money had been exchanged, an arrangement had been made as to when the Halili would move out, and they were all really waiting for the paperwork to final make it out of the ass end of the local government bureaucracy—Loren figured he should probably be there, if only because he could better explain what the people adopting the figures were getting into.

At first, he and Danny carefully picked up the figures from the shelves and placed them into a tray, then went outside to the temporary tables that had been set up in the yard to set them up neatly, but…

Loren took all the figures out of the tray and put them on the table. “All right, stand up and form lines and ranks,” he said. “When I come back with the next group, I expect you all to be in formation. Be one arm’s length from the one in front and on either side of you. Arms only, don’t count the hand because not all of you have hands in the same shape. You all want to look nice so someone will adopt you.”

…yeah… why painstakingly stand each figure up by hand when they could do it themselves?

It wasn’t all the figures.  A few had been set aside for various hobbyists who would be coming, while others had already been given out over the past few days to a few people who Danny had invited. Though according to the tally, that still left them with about 1200+ figures left, which… well, well, it was a lot.  Loren hoped the people coming didn’t settle for taking one or two of the figures with them. While he didn’t particularly care about what ultimately happened to the figures… well,  it seemed needless to just dispose of them.

Besides, at this point they knew his face. If they got angry, they might go for him and show exactly how accurate all those stories about vengeful dolls were.

Danny was fiddling with the beach umbrella over the tables, moving it slightly to cover more of everyone. Loren doubted that a couple of hours of direct sunlight would be enough to do permanent damage to the plastic, but… well, some of the plastic was twenty years old and thin because it was a plamo. Danny had probably spent years learning how to treat them carefully. Loren had done his best to help, but putting a Flamecraft to divert UV light in the air and expecting it to stay still was… well, an unreasonable expectation. It was air after all, air moved from every little thing.

They were in the middle of using tape and old cardboard boxes to provide more shade when the first cars started appearing.

A part of Loren had been expecting younger people, the sort of enthusiasts who collected things out of FOMO and then post videoes about it on ScryVids. He hadn’t expected the first person to arrive—in a car that was about ten years old and had spots where the paint had gotten a bit worn—to be someone who looked to be somewhere between his father and grandfather in age. Old people, his mind, didn’t do young people thing like collecting model kits of fictional robots and assembling them.

In hindsight, that had been a very silly thing of him to think. After all, the person whose collection they were trying to have adopted had been well into his sixties, and a little thought should have told him that people that Mr. Halili had met through the hobby years ago would have been his peers and therefore of a similar age to him.

“Mang Robby,” Danny greeted, obviously knowing the man. “Glad you could make it! How are you?”

“Danny!” Robby said with a smile that made Loren want to hold out his hand and ask for snack money, “I’m sorry to hear about Benjy.” Wait, Mr. Halili’s name was Benjy?

Loren stood to the side and finished the impromptu sunshade as the two exchanged small talk. Because there was always small talk. While they knew each other, they didn’t seem personally familiar, although Loren was hearing a lot of ‘your dad told me that you…’ sort of phrases. They were still at it when the next car arrived, this time disgorging a pair of payatin. One had their hair in an actual mullet—Loren pegged them as also about 60 or so—and looking like Loren’s grandfather planning to go to worship, while the other had their hair styled like a G-pop pretty-boy singer.

As Danny was still occupied, Loren stepped forward with an awkward smile. “Hi,” he called out. “You here to adopt some plamo to a good home?”

The one with the mullet nodded, lips curling into a smile but not showing teeth. “I was told they were Benjy’s. Are we allowed to pick which ones we get? Because I’ve always like how he used to paint them.”

“Ah, Dondon! How are you doing? How’s the business?”

“Robby! Doing fine, thanks for asking. Did you manage to pre-order the new Figu-Ascend this month?”

“Ah, thanks for reminding me! I’d been looking forward to this one, I can’t believe I forgot… Nice hair, by the way. Very 80’s.”

“It was time. The pompadour made me look too old.”

Loren mentally put two more decades on his estimate of the older payatin’s age.

Danny, stepped forward. “Mang Dondon,” he greeted. “I set aside some of the older ones that dad painted, just like you asked.”

“Ah, thank you, iho! Old man Bindoy said there was something about the plamo though? They were… what’s the word…”

“Tsukumogami, grandpa,” the other payatin said.

“That’s the thing! What does that mean? It’s not some kind of damage to the plastic because of some new paint, is it?”

“Ah, well… you see…”

Loren stepped forward. “You want me to explain this, Danny?” he offered. At Danny’s relieved smile, he turned towards the two old men. “Have either of you seen the movie ‘Doll Story’?”

He’d been finding that was always a good place to start.